3- Local is all about scale. And the only way to achieve scale in local is by aggregation (Jay Herratti, outgoing CEO, CityGridMedia)

4- Creating a closed loop is the path to a seamless user experience. American Express is… the acquirer, the issuer and the network. (Leslie Berland, SVP, American Express)

5- Daily deals are fun, but Big Data that combines different databases is critical for targeting users and winning loyalty (various)

6- Focus on engagement, not new customer acquisition. Loyal customers are worth 24 times more than new customers (Charlie Kim, CEO, NextJump)

7- Email fatigue is probably out there, but social media complements email, rather than kills it. They are both forms of permission marketing (Mark Schmulen, GM, Constant Contact)

8- Video is a great local medium, but offers limited inventory opportunities, and really can’t compete as a standalone with a major metro newspaper for advertising (Lisa DeSisto, VP, Advertising, The Boston Globe)

9- National brands can’t go local without a platform. Otherwise, you can’t get engagement and you’ll see high churn. (Pete Gombert, Founder and CEO, Ballihoo)

Here’s what we’ve been waiting to announce: Google Offers’ head Nitin Mangtani will join our great list of keynoters at ILM East March 26-28 in Boston. We believe Mangtani’s appearance marks one of the first public debuts of Google Offers, which is playing a major role in Google’s vital local strategy, along with Google Places, Google Maps and Zagat ratings and reviews.

Mangtani joins Google Channel Sales BizDev Head Christine Merritt at ILM East. Merritt will provide Google’s perspective on its emergence in the local ecosystem, and the most effective way to work with Google as a partner.

The next wave of Deals is, in general, a key focus for us at ILM East, along with mobile local media, social local media, video local media, hyperlocal and locally targeted national advertising.

In addition to the keynotes from Google Offers and Groupon, we have a special Day 1 session dedicated to the next wave of deals, featuring EverSave’s Jere Doyle; Find n Save’s Christopher Tippie; Closely’s Perry Evans; and Boomtime’s Bill Bice. That session will be followed by a broader view of deals and ecommerce, which featured NextJump’s Charlie Kim; Cartera’s Jim Douglass; and Bundle.com’s Jaidev Shergill.

Other recent adds to the program include The Boston Globe’s Lisa DeSisto, who joins Boston.com VP of Digital Products Jeff Moriarty as a presenter; and MIT Sloan Associate Professor Catherine Tucker, who gives the low down on the effectiveness of local social media.

Before the show, we’re making a special trip to The Boston Globe’s R&D Lab (Limited Space, RSVP required). Or come to Andrew Shotland’s SEO for the Enterprise session, which also features SEO Expert Will Scott and Advance Digital Media VP John Denny. We’re looking forward to a great show.

The ILM East program is shaping up as our favorite program in years, with cutting-edge BIA/Kelsey research and speakers. The event is teeming with new revenue and strategic opportunities for Internet and mobile advertising and commerce. The ideas keep coming and coming.

What we’ve just added is a special session with Christine Merritt, the head of business development for Google’s Channel Sales team. Merritt will share Google’s perspective on its place in the local ecosystem, and effective partnership ideas. There’s always really good Q&A with the Google sessions, and why not? It impacts everyone in a major way.

Other new adds includes a Boston welcome from Boston Globe VP of Advertising Lisa Desisto; and a special solo session with AOL Senior VP Mark Josephson, who will provide insights into the wide range of AOL local activities – not “just” Patch, but Local Voices and other major initiatives. We’ve also got interviews lined up with two top VCs: David Hornik, August Capital, and Scott Maxwell, Open View. Follow the money, indeed!

It’s safe to say that Ted Leonsis is at the center of the local revolution. He’s done it all, from his early days trying to jumpstart ecommerce at RedGate, to his work building a local framework at AOL (i.e. Mapquest, Digital City, MovieFone, Studio Now); to his current role as Vice Chair, Groupon; Board Member, Amex; a Principal with the $450 Million Revolution Growth Fund; and of course, as owner of The Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards and The Verizon Center.

What is Ted’s Take on key local issues? We’re talking live with Ted Monday at 3pm pacific/12 pm eastern in conjunction with his keynote at ILM East in Boston, which takes place March 28.

Sign up for the free Webinar. Registrants also get a discount code towards the conference, which is March 26-28.

Other highlights of the 2 ½ day event includes a pre-conference rundown on Local search run by Andrew Shotland of Local SEO Guide; a full plate of Top BIA/Kelsey research and forecasts; a special Venture Capital panel; and innovator panels on Social, Mobile, Deals, Video and Hyperlocal (the latter co-moderated with Merrill Brown.)

KEYNOTES/KEYNOTE DISCUSSIONS
• Ted Leonsis: Owner, Monumental Sports (Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards;) The Vice Chair of Groupon;, Board member of Amex, former Vice Chair of AOL; Author, The Business of Happiness
• Jason Calacanis: CEO, Mahalo; Investor. Calacanis’ career has been at the cutting edge of local and social media and reflects all the big trends, from his development of The Silicon Alley Reporter to Weblogs (AOL), Mahalo, and the creation of TechCrunch50 and Launch.
• Leslie Berland, Vice President, Social Strategy, American Express. Berland’s a major deal maker deeply involved in Amex’s mega FourSquare and Facebook deals.
• Jay Herratti, CEO, CityGrid Media. Herratti always gets top rankings at our events. He runs IAC’s super quad of the CityGrid Media Network, Citysearch, UrbanSpoon and InsiderPages.
• Michael Zimbalist, VP, Research Operations, New York Times Co. Zimbalist leads the NYT’s 12 person research unit. He’s deeply immersed in cutting edge social, mobile, tablet and video efforts.
• Michael Silberman, GM, New York Magazine Silberman is the mastermind of NYMag’s development of a super set of verticals catering to the “New York state of mind.”).

We’ve wrapped ILM West in San Francisco this week — another terrific show. Lots of great stuff. Thanks very much to the 50+ speakers, 32 sponsors, nearly 600 local leaders and various #ILMWest Tweeters who participated.

Now our attention is focused back on our research and analysis… and to ILM East March 26-28 in Boston, featuring an initial lineup that includes the great Ted Leonsis (here’s his Wikipedia entry), Jason Calacanis (CEO, Mahalo) Michael Zimbalist (dean of NY Times research), Jay Herratti (CEO, CityGrid), Michael Silberman (GM, NYmag.com); Charlie Kim (CEO, Next Jump); and Merrill Brown (Carnegie Fellow, co-founder MSNBC, Court TV, etc.)

Our goal with all the shows, of course, is to provide “context and contacts” for executives, entrepreneurs and investors building the local space. The testimonials now pouring in make us think that we were quite successful.

Internally, insights from ILM thought leaders, and the show’s in-depth research will definitely help the analysts from our six research programs shape the next waves of local innovation. Here are some of my personal takeaways:

1. No expectations of a runaway local winner. Some years, we think we’ve ID’d the next big thing. But this year, nobody really thinks that Facebook, Groupon, Living Social, Yelp or FourSquare is going to disrupt and run away with the entire market. This is one fragmented space. Google remains the only wildcard.

2. Time to rethink digital and traditional media separation. The New York Times, Washington Post, Morris and others have re-integrated their prints and online units. They’ve seen the light from Digital First. It gets better. The San Diego Union Tribune just named Mike Hodges, its digital leader, as president of the entire operation. But as Clark Gilbert points out, it is still important to delineate where it makes sense to integrate, and where it makes sense to keep operations separate.

3. Hail to the Phone! Or at least, to phone calls. As Marchex’s Matthew Berk brings up, the technology aids for search and discovery don’t point to replacing phone calls for leads. They point to reinforcing and supplementing phone calls. “The explosion of mobile is about being call-ready,” he notes.

4. There’s life in video and audio formats as add-on channels. We heard a lot from broadcasters at the show (i.e. Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman). What really struck us is what a great local promotional add on they are to Internet verticals (i.e. IHeart Radio). That’s mostly what they are.

5. We’re all in the games business – at least, a little bit. Kara Swisher disagrees, but games are being deployed in many walks of local, with new demographics, added frequency and stickiness. Just looks at what GrubHub is doing. It is something that leads providers learned years ago.

6. The deal platforms appear to be interchangeable, with little changing costs. We’ve been impressed by the development of white label deal platforms. But it was kind of shocking for us to see several major media outlets give so little credit to their platform providers.

Many thanks to our BIA/Kelsey community for the great success of ILM East last week in Boston. We appreciate that there was a ton of competition for people’s time, and we still managed a great showing (final tally: 455 participants). It was truly a great event with great learning and networking, and for me, a career highlight.

We got many testimonials (thank you!), but I like this one from Clipper Magazine CEO Steve Zuckerman. “The show was very informative. It got me thinking about things a little differently.”